Overall voting percentage in Mysuru 68.32 at 5 pm:

• Krishnaraja – 56.43
• Chamaraja – 55.67
• Narasimharaja – 58.70
• Chamundeshwari – 67.50
• Varuna – 77.11

Mysore/Mysuru: Voting for Karnataka election began from 7 am today to elect a new 224-member Assembly.

In a three-way contest in the State, the ruling BJP aims to break a 38-year jinx in the southern State, which has never voted an incumbent party to power since 1985. The party is gambling on fielding 52 new faces.

The combative Congress is hoping to return to power while the JD(S) could look to play a king-maker’s role on May 13. The winning party must have 113 seats to form the Government in Karnataka out of 224 seats.

The gates of the polling booths were opened at 7 am and before that, the polling staff who had stayed at the booths overnight had to wind up the mock-polling exercise.

Notably, middle-aged and senior citizens were the first to cast their votes. Voting will continue till 6 pm.

Though there was a general lacklustre among youths and first-time voters in the initial hours, they made it up after 10 am as they started arriving at the booths in batches.

The voting began on a slow note in the initial hours and by 9 am, an average voting percentage of 8.26 percent was recorded in Karnataka. By 11 am, over 20.9 percent was recorded.

The State recorded a voting percentage of 37.25 percent at 1 pm and Mysuru recorded 36.73 percent. In Mysuru district, Varuna topped the list with 43.70 percent voting at 1 pm. 

Chamaraja reported 33.50 percent, Chamundeshwari 36 percent, H.D. Kote 38.09 percent, Hunsur 35.48 percent, Krishnaraja 35.52 percent, K.R. Nagar 40.80 percent, Nanjangud 32.29 percent, Narasimharaja 33.69 percent, Periyapatna 37.17 percent and T. Narasipur recorded 40.69 percent.

At each booth, volunteers from NCC, NSS, Scouts and Guides and other youths were appointed to ferry the elders and people with disabilities from their vehicles or from the road to the booths. The polling was incident-free in the city limits and in Varuna where there are 54 critical booths, Police and the officials were hard-pressed to maintain order. As the voting percentage was high in Varuna, most of the booths were crowded. 

At all the booths, political parties had appointed their own agents who sat 200 metres away from the booth with copies of voter lists and other records, verifying the voters and also judging the votes cast in favour of their candidates. A few metres away from the booth, party workers were seen standing in a line with folded hands and bending forward, urging the voters to vote for that particular candidate in a polite manner.

Villagers boycott polls

Accusing the officials of apathy in providing them basic amenities, villagers of Yeligehundi coming under Chamundeshwari Constituency, registered their protest by boycotting voting today. On learning about the  vote boycott, authorities rushed to Yeligehundi and tried to convince the villagers to exercise their franchise. But the villagers seemed unconvinced as they stuck to their firm stand until they get a written assurance on providing civic amenities such as drinking water, drainage, sanitation etc.

 The officials told them to submit their grievances in writing, to which they said they had given it many times in the past, but to no avail. As the villagers were adamant, the officials continued with their convincing efforts as we went to the press.